1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) switchable image display apparatus and a method of displaying 2D and 3D images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Three-dimensional (3D) image display apparatuses for supporting 3D images have recently been developed to make displayed images look more realistic.
In general, a person's two eyes are spaced apart from each other by about 6.5 cm. Accordingly, when a person sees an object, both eyes obtain slightly different views of the object. A difference in location of the object seen by the left and right eyes is referred to as disparity. The disparity is synthesized in the brain and is perceived as a stereoscopic image. A 3D image is displayed based on this principle. For example, when both eyes see a hexahedral object, the brain detects a similar part between views of the hexahedral object from both eyes, and exploits parallax due to the different views from the eyes so as to gain depth perception and estimate a distance between both eyes and the hexahedral object.
In a conventional method of displaying a 3D image, a left-eye image (left image) and a right-eye image (right image) are separately formed during a content development step and are synthesized to generate stereoscopic image data, and then the left image and the right image are repeatedly provided to a stereoscopic image display apparatus. The stereoscopic image display apparatus requires a separate device for performing an intermediate process of synthesizing the left image and the right image. Since the separate device should exist as an algorithm in an integrated circuit (IC) or a host processor, the separate device increases an area and computing resources, thereby incurring additional mechanical and electrical costs. Also, the stereoscopic image display apparatus requires an additional device such as a memory for temporarily storing the left-eye image or the right-eye image, and a processor for performing 3D or 2D image processing. Furthermore, since the stereoscopic image display apparatus should repeatedly input the left and right images, the data input/output speed and power consumption of an interface are increased relative to input information.